E. FOREST CONDITIONS AND METHODS OF FOREST MANAGE- 

 MENT IN GERMANY, WITH A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF FOREST 

 MANAGEMENT IN BRITISH INDIA. 



Forest Area, Extent and Ownership. 



Germany, as constituted at present, has an area of 133,000,000 acres — about one-fifteenth of 

 our country — a population of about 47,000,000, or less than 3 acres per capita, or only one-tenth of 

 our per capita average. Its forests cover 34,700,000 acres, or 2G per cent of the entire land surface, 

 A large portion of the forests cover the poorer, chiefly sandy, soils of the Forth German plains, or 

 occupy the rough, hilly, and steeper mountain lands of the numerous smaller mountain systems, 

 and a small portion of the northern slopes of the Alps. They are distributed rather evenly over 

 the entire Empire. Piussia, with 06 per cent of the entire land area, possesses 23.5 per cent of 

 forest land, while the rest of the larger States have each over 30 per cent, except small, indus- 

 trious Saxony, which lies intermediate, with 27 per cent of forest cover. 



Considering the smaller districts of Prussia, Bavaria, and the smaller States, it is found that 

 out of G4 provinces and districts, "IS have less than 20 per cent forest; 18 have from 20 to 29 per 

 cent; 23, including the greater part of the country, have from 30 to 39 per cent, and 5 of the 

 smaller districts have from 40 to 41 per cent of forest. The districts containing less than 20 per 

 cent of forests are, as might be supposed, mostly fertile farming districts in which the plow land 

 forms over 40 per cent of the land, but tliey also include neglected districts like Hanover and 

 Luneburg, where a former shortsighted, selfish, and improvident policy has led to the deforesta- 

 tion of poor, flat lands, which have gradually been transformed into heaths, where an accumulation 

 of bog-iron ore, and other obstacles render the attempts at reforestation difficult, expensive, and 

 unsatisfactory. Left to forests, these same lands, which now are unable to furnish support to 

 farmers or to produce a revenue to their owner, could easily pay the taxes and interest on a 

 capital of $50 to $100 per acre. To reforest them now costs $10 to $50 per acre and requires a 

 lifetime before any returns can be expected. 



Since it is one of the common claims in the eastern United States that the land is all needed 

 for agriculture, and since it will be conceded that in hardly any State east of the Mississippi 

 much land necessarily remains untilled, it may be of interest to note that in this densely populated 

 Empire of Germany out of 67 districts and provinces the plow land forms less than 20 per cent in 

 4 districts, 30 to 39 per cent in 10 districts, 40 to 49 per cent in 26 districts, 50 to 59 per cent 

 in 20 districts, and 60 to 69 per cent in 7 districts, in spite of the fact that a large part of the 

 forests are in private hands and would be cleared if the owners saw fit to do so. 



In our country the total area in farms is only 18 per cent at present. 



Of the total of 34,700,000 acres of forest land (an area about as large as the State of Wis- 

 consin) 32.7 per cent belongs to the several States as State property; 19 per cent belongs to 

 villages, towns, and other corporations, and 50 per cent to private owners, a considerable part of 



this being in large estates of the nobility. 



213 



